It’s hard to believe it’s been three years. It seems like just yesterday we held you in our arms, sleeping peacefully after the tough work of being born.

Precious and peaceful, screaming and shouting, laughing and dancing, running and jumping, talking and singing, hugging and cuddling, joyful and tragic, we love you so dearly, our little big man!

I hope your day is magical and amazing, because you certainly are.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/enssle

We’re just catching up, and we’ve got some more recent photos and videos coming soon, so watch this space!

Oh, and Anna’s been doing just great with her new cast (which is very, very pink!). Seriously. We’re all amazed at her positive attitude and she’s getting some really good therapy done. Her new therapist said that the cast might just make it all simpler for her, in a way, by removing the constant conflict in her mind about which hand to use for each and every task.

Tara and I are starting to get into a bit of a rhythm? Maybe? Well, okay maybe not. It’ll take awhile, I think. Thrice-weekly contributions of yummy delicious food from my co-workers are indeed helping, however. We weren’t great about cooking during the week with just one child, and with two it’s proving even more challenging. (Thanks Foraker!)

Meanwhile: I can’t believe I’m sick again? Not. Fair.

Meanwhile: Noah’s doing well. Working on getting his days and nights straight, but otherwise just doing the usual new baby things (i.e. sleeping, eating, eating, awake for 15 minutes, sleeping, eating, pooping, sleeping, eating, etc.). There are some new photos up on the Flickr site.

It was too snowy yesterday for us to get to Anna’s physical therapy appointment in the morning, and the riding center cancelled her hippotherapy because it was too cold (apparently even horses don’t like 7 degree weather!). So we spent the day hanging out with family.

Debbie’s been cooking up a storm before she leaves on Thursday, trying to stock our freezer. And the good folks at Foraker are chipping in too — at this rate we won’t have to cook anything until mid-March or so. Which is awesome, and for which we are exceedingly grateful!

Okay. Time for a quick nap before I have to hop in the shower and get ready to get Ms. Anna up and moving and off to daycare before I head in to work.

There are also some new photos of Mr. Noah. You can always view Noah-specific photos on Flickr in his own, personal photo set.

Everyone here is doing well enough. Tara and I are splitting shifts and so far have managed to be able to do a good job of alternating really bad nights.

Oh, and Granny Debbie and Tara painted Anna’s room pink today (I got carpet cleaning duty). We thought she’d lose her mind with joy at the “pinkalicious-ness” of it all. Instead: “Hmmm. Hmmm. I’m… I’m really hungry. Can I have a treat?”

So much for trying to make the toddler happy!?

Everyone’s doing well. Noah’s still spending the vast majority of his time sleeping (as is only right and good!). Anna is as enthusiastic about her baby brother as you could expect an almost-three-year-old to be (“he’s a real baby!”). Max greeted the newcomer with reasonable interest and has spent most of the afternoon upstairs hanging out with all of us (compare to Anna’s arrival, when he hid in the basement for about a week). And Granny’s been a superstar, handling most of the cooking and cleaning.

We’re off to bed soon.  We’ll see how our first night all together goes — here’s hoping we manage to get a little more sleep than we did at the hospital.

But it’s good to be home.

Note: I just posted the day’s photos on our Flickr site, including a pretty cool video of Anna singing a rousing rendition of “baa baa black sheep, havin’ you da wolf” for her baby brother.

We’ve posted a bunch of photos on the Flickr site, so take a look.

It’s been a long day. Noah’s doing great — sleeping mostly, but also doing a generally good job of breast feeding. We’ve had lots of family in the room today visiting, which made for a busy day. (Frankly, I’m exhausted).

Very probably heading home tomorrow, which Ms. Anna is extremely excited about. She’s missing her momma, and wants to have her baby brother home “right now”.

Off to try and catch a few winks now. Thanks to everyone for the well wishes!

Updated 7/4/2008, by Neal: Now with even more photos! I just uploaded a bunch from last night. My brother Colin and his wife are in town, and I was a little crazy with my new camera. There’s a great series of Anna portraits there though!

Updated 7/5/2008, by Neal: Now with video! Turns out Flickr (the folks who host our photos) have started a new video service. I uploaded a movie of Anna dancing to “Happy Feet” there. Let us know how this works for you?

Anna is doing a great job with her therapy. Her therapists are constantly amazed at how hard the girl works. We do have our meltdowns from time to time, especially when they ask her to do something that is pushing her to the limit. For the most part, Anna does what her therapists ask her to do, but today she was either tired, frustrated or just demonstrating how terrible the twos can be. After days like today, I imagine the folks in the apartments around us wonder if we are skinning our child. Anna let out some of the most ear-piercing squeals/screams when she didn’t get her way today. It was truly a battle of the wills (and I’m not sure we (the adults) came out on top!).

Yesterday Anna had her first bath in a week. Yes, you read that correctly…ONE WEEK. For the first time in a week, Anna had her cast removed to check for any skin issues or irritations. She had a small blister between her middle fingers, but otherwise things looked fine. The smell…now that was a totally different story. Yuck. We gave her a bath and washed her stinky hair, and she enjoyed it so much that she didn’t want to get out. But all good things must end and the cast had to go back on. Surprisingly, putting the cast back on did not cause any problems. She actually cooperated completely.

I’ve been slowly posting more pictures. We hadn’t really posted any since before Christmas, so there is quite a backlog. Make sure to check previous pages on Flickr, as you’ll probably find newly posted pictures there as well.